[CF-Devel] Change in equip method.

[Mark Wedel]

Todd Mitchell wrote:

>
     
      following the comments by Mark and David;
     
     >
     
      I had too much fun thinking about this...please shoot me
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
     
     >>>
     
     Before I go any further, i would like to point out (and yes this is
     
     >>>
     
     through experience) that a weapon arm and a shield arm are the same
     
     >>>
     
     thing. For example, florentine is the style whereby a fighter uses two
     
     >>>
     
     weapons. I know we have been over the problem of being able to equip two
     
     >>>
     
     weapons, but I think it worth pointing out, that perhaps just 'arm'
     
     >>>
     
     would be more useful in the long term =). I suppose it doesn't make a
     
     >>>
     
     great deal of difference (a player special florentine (sword master)
     
     >>>
     
     type character could be devised that maps shield arm to weapon arm but
     
     >>>
     
     in the interests of logic.... ).
     
     >>>
     
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      I noticed you mentioned a two handed sword but didn't mention bows.  I found
     
     >
     
      it unusual that I could equip a bow and a shield in Crossfire.  If you
     
     >
     
      couldn't equip a bow or crossbow and a shield at the same time, mor people
     
     >
     
      might like to use throwing weapons instead which would be good.  It would
     
     >
     
      also mean that less people would use bows or crossbows however since it
     
     >
     
      would not be so easy to switch between ranged and close combat with a
     
     >
     
      shield.
     
     

  If bows were overused, this may be something worth considering.  But it seems 
that bows are generally underused, so I don't really think that making them even 
harder/less worthwhile to use would necessarily be a good thing.



>
     
      I'm all for greater differences between the races - makes things more
     
     >
     
      interesting for sure.  One thing, would a four armed creature be able to use
     
     >
     
      2 shields?   For that matter if there is not a sword_arm, shield_arm kind of
     
     >
     
      thing, but just arms, wouldnt you have to check if a shield was already
     
     >
     
      equipped on one of the arms to avoid the ol' double shield trick with
     
     >
     
      regular two armed fellas?  If you had just arms you could have a five armed
     
     >
     
      beastie with five swords (or 3 swords and a bow, or 2 bows and a
     
     >
     
      shield...gets pretty grim from a writing it view, but sounds like fun for
     
     >
     
      creature making).
     
     >
     
      I think that you shouldn't use finger 2 and feet 1 though since this is just
     
     >
     
      goofy (only two fingers and one foot? )  Since the majority of magic boots
     
     >
     
      come in pairs you could just assume that 2 is the standard (or call it
     
     >
     
      something else since seeing a quadreped with 2 feet is silly) and if feet is
     
     >
     
      not 2 then they need a special item.  (your centaur gets shoes+2 made at the
     
     >
     
      blacksmiths...)
     
     

  If you just had arms, there would be nothing preventing someone from using 2 
shields.  This is odd, but I don't consider it too much a problem.

  Much more a problem is using 2 weapons, because weapons have the most 
enchantments (And the fact that players can enchant them), and that would really 
mess up the balance.

  But yes, if you had a 4 armed creature, split between 2 weapon arms and 2 
shield arms, it could then use two shields.

  As per the other method, yeah, I think allowing items to use multiple of the 
same locaiton probably makes more senses.  Fix that odd behaviour of only 1 feet 
or 2 fingers.


>
     
     
     >
     
      octaped:
     
     >
     
      head 1
     
     >
     
      torso 1
     
     >
     
      hands 5 (counts for weapons and rings)
     
     >
     
      neck 1
     
     >
     
      feet 3 (no boots for you unless we assume a pair is 3 at your cobblers)
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Perhaps it would be best to stick to weapon_arm, shield_arm. You can use
     
     >
     
      hand for the ring slots (the old
     
     >
     
      'one_ring_per_hand_since_their_mystic_energy_creates_interference' rule)
     
     

  Note that hands would be be a type - you would have fingers and weapon_hands 
and shield_hands.

  This, for example, means you could have a race with 6 fingers/hand, which may 
give a minor advantage (See previous messages).

  feet 3 wouldn't actually prevent anything.  Stuff you put on does not have to 
be an exact match (eg, if you have 10 fingers, 2 rings that use 5 fingers each 
would be the norm).  Thus, feet 3 would let you wear one pair of boots, and 
still have a foot left over.  So if there was just a singular boot, he could but 
that on.

  Note that the real enforcement is having different types.  For example, humans 
would have 'feet', but horses/centaurs should have 'hooves' - they obviously 
just can't put on human boots.


>
     
     
     >
     
      I think that ranged weapons are undervaluated in the game since there are
     
     >
     
      not real terrain factors (no_fly_pass flag and an update to the monster
     
     >
     
      attack target routine anyone?) to encourage their use.  It should be fairly
     
     >
     
      hard to get by without ranged weapons of some sort (either as a backup to
     
     >
     
      spells or as an alternate attack method to avoid closing with monsters).
     
     >
     
      Perhaps heavy fighter types could get away without them, but the majority of
     
     >
     
      classes should find them indispensible.  You can put monsters in little
     
     >
     
      rooms to prevent them from all rushing at the players, but this isn't as
     
     >
     
      good as having actual terrain (water, barrels, tables, low walls...) that
     
     >
     
      would allow missile weapons through but block movement (except special
     
     >
     
      movement like flying).    It also might give players more time to equip a
     
     >
     
      bow or whip out that horn or wand if the monsters didn't always rush at them
     
     >
     
      but attacked and could be attacked from a distance, which might make up for
     
     >
     
      having only one ranged slot and the loss of that shield.  Ranged weapons
     
     >
     
      really expand the possibilities for combat and a great ranged combat system
     
     >
     
      should include some terrain factors.
     
     

  The problem on this goes back to cases where there were monsters constrained 
in ways that using range weapons made sense.

  The problem is that unless the monster has a range weapon to return fire with, 
it amounted to a safe kill for a player.  And this causes various problems.

  There is also the problem that if you try to make the maps multi player 
accessible, the hallways sort of need to be more than 1 space wide.  But this 
also makes the range weapons harder to deal with.

  I think some of the problem is that there is a tough balancing act.  You 
pretty much always want that melee weapon to do more damage, with the advantage 
of the range weapon the fact you have some distance/safety.  The problem is 
movement on many monsters is fast enough that your not going to get too many 
shots with that weapon before the monster closes anyways.  The fact that most 
combats in crossfire last in the seconds greatly limits that amount of tactics 
that one can employ.